ARB Benghazi: Quick Comment, Part 4

That's a nice wave

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

In Part 3, I quoted a GAO report to note some of the practical limitations that prevent most of the Department's overseas office facilities from fully meeting security standards. In this post, I'll cite the Foreign Affairs Manual to the effect that certain types of overseas facilities are not required to fully meet security standards or to obtain waivers of unmet standards.

Now, to track down the Department's actual requirements for overseas facilities security and waivers thereof, you have to go deep into a Dork Forest of official paperwork and policy geek language. Misunderstandings are common, and one of those misunderstandings concerns the Special Mission in Benghazi. It did not 'meet standards.' But did those standards apply in the first place, and did the Mission need a waiver of unmet standards?

The written statement of former RSO Tripoli Eric Nordstrom to the House Oversight Committee concerning security measures taken and not taken in Benghazi (here) contains this key passage:

SECCA [the Secure Embassy and Counterterrorism Act] establishes statutory security requirements for U.S. diplomatic facilities involving collocation and setback. Under SECCA, the State Department, in selecting a site for any new U.S. diplomatic facility abroad, must collocate all U.S. Government personnel at the post on the site. Each newly acquired U.S. diplomatic facility must be placed not less than 100 feet from the perimeter of the property. New U.S. chancery/consulate buildings, solely or substantially occupied by the U.S. Government, must meet collocation and 100-foot setback statutory requirements; otherwise, waivers to the statutory requirements must be granted by the Secretary of State. Furthermore, in accordance with 12 FAM 315.5, the Secretary {of State} must notify the appropriate congressional committees in writing of any waiver with respect to a chancery or consulate building and the reasons for the determination, not less than 15 days prior to implementing a statutory collocation or setback waiver.

The requirement for a waiver might seem clear - it was required by law, and Hillary Clinton herself had to have signed it - but the key phrase is "U.S. chancery/consulate buildings." What exactly qualifies as a chancery or consulate?

All policy language is subject to definition. The first thing the FAM says about the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act is in 12 FAM 313. Note paragraph b:

12 FAM 313 SECURE EMBASSY CONSTRUCTION AND COUNTERTERRORISM ACT (SECCA)

a. SECCA establishes statutory security requirements for U.S. diplomatic facilities involving collocation and setback. (1) Site Selection (Collocation): The State Department, in selecting a site for any new U.S. diplomatic facility abroad, must collocate all U.S. Government personnel at the post (except those under the command of an area military commander) on the site.

(2) Perimeter Distance (Setback): Each newly acquired U.S. diplomatic facility must be sited not less than 100 feet (30.48 m) from the perimeter of the property on which the facility is situated.

b. U.S. diplomatic facilities are defined for purposes of the SECCA to include any chancery, consulate, or other office notified to the host government as diplomatic or consular premises in accordance with the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations. It also includes offices subject to a publicly available bilateral agreement with the host government that recognizes the official status of the U.S. Government personnel present in the facility.

So for the purpose of applying SECCA, a "U.S. diplomatic facility" is an office that is notified to the host government, or is the subject of a publicly available bilateral agreement. Full stop.

The question then becomes: was the Special Mission in Benghazi so notified to the host government? If the answer to that question is yes, then it needed a waiver. If the answer is no, then it did not.

The Benghazi ARB report said the Mission was never formally notified to the Libyan government:

Although the TNC [Transitional National Counsel] declared that Tripoli would continue to be the capital of a post-Qaddafi Libya, many of the influential players in the TNC remained based in Benghazi. Stevens continued as Special Envoy to the TNC in Benghazi until he departed Libya on November 17, 2011, after which the Special Envoy position was not filled. Stevens was replaced by an experienced Civil Service employee who served for 73 days in what came to be called the “principal officer” position in Benghazi. After November 2011, the principal officer slot became a TDY assignment for officers with varying levels of experience who served in Benghazi anywhere from 10 days to over two months, usually without transiting Tripoli. In December 2011, the Under Secretary for Management approved a one-year continuation of the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, which was never a consulate and never formally notified to the Libyan government.

Assuming the ARB report is correct on that point, there was never a need for a waiver of security standards for the Special Mission in Benghazi. Therefore, various Congressmen can stop wasting their time in a futile hunt for that smoking gun in Hillary's hands.

They are in hot pursuit of it now. Here's Rep. James Lankford questioning Eric Nordstrom on May 8, at the second Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi:




The key exchange is:

(Lankford): "By statute, Mr. Nordstrom, who has authority to place personnel in a facility that does not meet the minimum OSPB [Overseas Security Policy Board] standards?"

(Nordstrom): "The OSPB standards go in tandem with SECCA, which is the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act, both of which derived out of the East Africa bombings, or were strengthened after that. It's my understanding that since we were the sole occupants of both of those facilities - Benghazi and Tripoli - the only person who could grant waivers or exceptions to those was the Secretary of State."

And with that, the hunt is on for the blockbuster withheld waiver memo that is assumed to exist.

I haven't seen the Department issue a statement of its own, separate from the ARB report, to clarify the status of the Special Mission in regard to SECCA's standards and waiver requirements. There are plenty of policy analysts and legal advisers in the building who could give Congress a definitive opinion, and the Department spokesmen would be well advised to use them.

The entire matter of Benghazi and its aftermath are traumatic enough already, and I'd hate to see people get even more emotionally invested in a waiver memo that doesn't exist.

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Google Versus Bing, Memorial Day 2013

As per usual, Google did a little tiny ribbon for Memorial Day instead of one of its trademark Google Doodles.

I suppose if I were one of Google's indentured high-tech servants making less than the prevailing U.S. wage (thanks, Congress) I wouldn't put any effort into the occasion, either.














Bing, also as usual, has an appropriate background image.

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Benghazi ARB Follow-Up: Quick Comment, Part 3

Just waiting for a security upgrade

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

In Part 2, I referred to the difficultly of upgrading the security of temporary, and/or hastily acquired, facilities. I also cited Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy (here) saying that at least half of the State Department's overseas office buildings fail to fully meet the standards established by the Overseas Security Policy Board.

Why is it so hard to upgrade those buildings until they meet standards? Is it insufficient funding? Lack of will? Total bureaucratic indifference? Technical incompetence?

Opinions about all of that will differ, but anyone who has actually tried to upgrade the security of one of those buildings has realized the inherent limitations of conventionally constructed buildings - that is, of the normal kinds of office and residential buildings that you find the world over. Unless and until you build a building to suit yourself, i.e., a Fortress Embassy, you will have to settle for something less than fully satisfactory.

The situation was explained very well in a General Accountability Office report from 2008, GAO-08-162, which was succinctly entitled "Embassy Security: Upgrades Have Enhanced Security, but Site Conditions Prevent Full Adherence to Standards." A few quotes from that report will do:

At the 11 posts we visited with ongoing or completed CSUP [Compound Security Upgrade Program] projects, we found that the projects had enhanced posts' compliance with State's physical security standards as detailed in the "Foreign Affairs Handbook" and "Foreign Affairs Manual." The projects we viewed added or enhanced pedestrian and vehicle access points, replaced perimeter fencing to meet anti-climb requirements, installed bollards and barriers at key points to meet anti-ram requirements, built safe areas for post officials in case of attack, enhanced the hard line separating post employees from visitors, and installed forced entry/ballistic-resistant windows and doors.

Nevertheless, without building a new facility, many posts are unable to meet all security standards for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of CSUP. We found that none of the posts we visited adhered fully with current security standards because of conditions that were outside the scope of CSUP projects. For example, most of the posts we visited were located in dense urban areas that prevented them from achieving a 100-foot setback from the street, one of the key security standards. OBO [Overseas Buildings Operations] and DS [Diplomatic Security] officials acknowledged that, at many locations, it is not feasible to increase the setback by acquiring land and closing off nearby streets. In other cases, officials stated the buildings themselves were not structurally capable of handling heavy forced entry/ballistic-resistant windows or other upgrades. And in other cases, officials commented that host nations or cities would not allow certain upgrades to be implemented, such as removing trees to create a clear zone around the embassy or changing the facade of historic buildings.

That's about the size of it. The U.S. government occupies hundreds of office buildings overseas, and has done so since the 1800s. Despite the pace of new embassy construction, which kicked into high gear only in 2000, many of the buildings we occupy today were acquired long before we had any type of security standards. We can upgrade them to a greater or lesser degree but can't make them Fortresses retroactively, for all the reasons the GAO noted - locations that lack significant setback distance from public streets, structures that can't support the weight of serious physical barriers, and host governments that won't permit certain changes.

The most serious of these reasons is structural limitation, which means that you can't add more weight to a building than its load-bearing structure will allow. The structural limitations of the typical building that you can acquire overseas might not be obvious, but trust me, adding Fortress-level amounts of concrete or steel to it isn't an option. (By the way, an excellent general-interest primer on this topic is Why Buildings Stand Up: The Strength of Architecture, in case you are really motivated to read into the subject.)

You can try this yourself at home. Steel plate of a useful thickness weighs 10 pounds per square foot, the forced entry/ballistic-resistant doors used in Fortress Embassies weight almost 1,000 pounds each, and equivalent windows weigh 44 pounds per square foot. (I take that information from the brochure of a company that sells Department-certified security products.) Call a building contractor and ask what it would take to plate your house in steel and replace the doors and windows with forced-entry/ballistic resistant ones.

Unless you live in something made of reinforced concrete, you'll probably find it isn't feasible. And in that event, you would most likely settle for something less. The U.S. government does the same.

I'll have one last quick comment in response to the Benghazi ARB, to be posted sometime this Memorial Day weekend.

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The Embassy Security Bill Comes Due, And It's A Bargain

Typical U.S. Embassy Command and Control Hub, I think

I'd be willing to pay more than $1 million for a Command and Control Hub like that, the kind they have in every Tom Clancy-esque movie. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to pay more than a few thousand for a simple guard booth.

Whoever it was who came up with the term "command and control hub" for today's New York Times story (Additional Embassy Guards Will Come With a Steep Price) has a promising future in real estate sales.

I've noticed that the public imagination runs wild when it comes to Marine Security Guards. Almost everyone I know outside the Department, especially including those who have never visited a U.S. embassy, believe every embassy is protected by one or two platoons of Marine infantry who encircle the place to keep foreigners away.

Where do they get these crazy ideas? From movies like The Bourne Identity, in which about 100 Marines chase Matt Damon around the U.S. Consulate in Munich (an exceptionally unrealistic scene, but please enjoy), and Zero Dark Thirty, in which Marines in combat gear are shown outside the gate of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, rifles at port arms, shoving back any Pakistanis who come too close. Those are depictions of a normal day, not a riot or attack, or an emergency evacuation. Just the day-to-day for Marine Security Guards.

No matter how inaccurate that image may be, it will come in handy now that the taxpayers are getting the bill for setting up 35 new MSG Detachments. I predict there will not be one peep of discontent, since the taxpayers know they're getting $1.6 million worth of foreign-ass-kicking value from each of those Marines.

I see two take-aways and one bit of real news from the NYT story. First, the facilities needed to support this expansion - new Post 1 booths and Marine Houses - are where 90+ percent of the costs are. And second, the first new Detachment won't be in place until more than one year after the Benghazi attack, the incident which prompted the build-up. Lesson to be learned: nothing like this happens quickly or cheaply.

The story's last paragraph has the real news, which the Times might not have realized is news. SecState Kerry is quoted as saying that the priorities for Marine Security Guards have shifted, and their first responsibility is now to protect people, not classified information.

Most people probably thought that was always their first priority, but actually, it wasn't. (Indeed, the website of the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group still reflects the former, traditional, mission statement with its emphasis on protection of classified materials.) So now, maybe the public's high expectations of embassy ass-kicking will finally be met.

WASHINGTON — When the State Department fields the first of 350 additional Marine security guards at high-risk embassies and consulates around the world later this year, the price tag will be steep: about $1.6 million per Marine.

Why so much?

It turns out that about $525 million of the $553 million that Congress approved this year to deploy more Marine guards — fulfilling a recommendation of the independent review panel that investigated the attacks last year on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya — is going toward building new command-and-control hubs in the posts and living quarters for the Marines.

The department plans to send 35 new Marine detachments, with about 10 Marines each, to diplomatic posts over the next few years. The first 90 are expected to arrive by the end of the year, officials said.

-- snip --

The financing for the new facilities also covers living quarters, which would include bedrooms and common areas, as well as small gyms and cafeterias. The department prefers that the Marines live on the compound when possible, officials said.

-- snip --

[Department officials] said each of the new command centers and additional housing would be custom-designed, either as part of brand-new embassies or leased housing. The department is in the process of developing specific project plans for each of the new Marine detachments, with the first new facilities to be included in embassies under construction in Laos and the West African country of Benin.

-- snip --

Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday in outlining the recommendations from the investigative panel that the additional Marines would be added to the diplomatic posts that face the highest threats. “We’re making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials,” he said.

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Benghazi ARB Follow-Up: Quick Comment Part 2

U.S. embassy life can be an endless series of temporary projects

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information. 

In Part 1, I commented about a couple of those Wise Men who are to shed their wisdom on the Department regarding best practices for security in high threat / high risk locations. Now, here's something else that I think is puzzling.

Recommendation 5 of the ARB report called for the Department to develop security standards expressly for temporary mission facilities. That makes great sense to me, since there is a vast difference between the sort of hasty facilities that we need to acquire and fit-out in expeditionary environments and the permanent Fortress Embassies that the Department might build in more stable places. 'Expeditionary' has to happen right now, making use of available materials and funds to improvise a minimum level of protection, whereas Fortress Embassies take several years to design and build and cost several hundred million dollars.

Two such different situations need two different sets of standards, right? You might think so.

Here's what the ARB recommended:

The Department should develop minimum security standards for occupancy of temporary facilities in high risk, high threat environments, and seek greater flexibility to make funds rapidly available for security upgrades at such facilities.

Here's how the Department's press release reported its action on that recommendation:

The Department has re-affirmed that Overseas Security Policy Board Standards apply to temporary facilities.

We identified flexible funding authorities to make improvements to our overseas facilities.

Aren't they talking past each other here? The ARB recommended the Department develop security standards for temporary facilities because, you know, it doesn't have any such standards now. The standards it has are intended for permanent situations.

To "reaffirm" that we'll apply the security standards we already have to temporary facilities seems to be a refusal to deal with the recommendation. Worse, it leaves those temporary facilities in the same bureaucratic limbo as Special Mission Benghazi, lacking the money and direction for serious security upgrades because they lack a permanent status.

To quote from the ARB report:

Special Mission Benghazi’s uncertain future after 2012 and its “non-status” as a temporary, residential facility made allocation of resources for security and personnel more difficult, and left responsibility to meet security standards to the working-level in the field, with very limited resources.

Having appropriate standards for temporary facilities - which means standards that aim for a lower, albeit more realistic and achievable level, of protection - would regularize what is now an ad hoc practice.

By the way, not all permanent U.S. diplomatic missions around the world meet those Overseas Security Policy Board standards that the Department just reaffirmed. Not even half of them do, according to none other than Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy.

As he told Congress:

More than half the U.S. diplomatic posts overseas may not fully meet security standards, a senior U.S. official told a hearing on Thursday that follows an attack on the mission in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans died.

Pat Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management at the State Department, told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee that the United States had a diplomatic presence at 283 locations around the world.

He said 97 safe and secure facilities had been completed since the 1999 passage of a U.S. law authorizing additional funding for security upgrades, including 70 full replacements of embassies or consulates, as well as some building of Marine guard quarters and office annexes.

"There remain approximately 158 posts that have facilities that may not fully meet current security standards," he said.

"Many of these facilities were built or acquired prior to the establishment of the current security standards, and others are subject to authorized waivers and/or exceptions."

The Department has completed many new construction projects since 2000, however, according to a publicly available presentation by the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, only one in four U.S. government employees overseas (about 20,500 out of a total of 85,000) works in a Fortress Embassy.

The other three out of four work in a wide range of facilities, some better than others, but all of them somewhat less secure than a purpose-built modern embassy. They are either grandfathered or "subject to authorized waivers" due to the impracticality of fully meeting security standards retroactively in buildings the Department did not construct.

If that's the situation for our permanent facilities, then surely our less-than-permanent facilities will likewise fail to fully meet Overseas Security Policy Board standards. Why not accept that reality and develop security standards that are suitable and achievable for temporary occupancies?

I'll have another quick comment tomorrow or Saturday about the practical limits of hardening up conventional buildings.

 

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Most Eyebrow-Raising Headline Of The Week

"Man Arrested After Pocket-Dialing 9-1-1 and Talking About Murder Plans" (NBC News story, South Florida)

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Benghazi ARB Follow-Up: Quick Comment, Part 1

A panel of experts will think deeply about security

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

So, yesterday the State Department sent out a press release about the progress it has made implementing the recommendations of the Benghazi ARB. That effort will have major ramifications. To quote from the release, it "will require fundamentally reforming the organization in critical ways. While risk can never be completely eliminated from our diplomatic duties, we must always work to minimize it."

You can read the whole press release here (Benghazi Accountability Review Board Implementation), but two particular items in it strike me as either curious or wrong-headed.

First, the curious one.

Recommendation 4. The Department should establish a panel of outside independent experts (military, security, humanitarian) with experience in high risk, high threat areas to identify best practices (from other agencies and other countries), and evaluate U.S. security platforms in high risk, high threat posts.

And where does that recommendation stand now?

The Department established a six-person panel to identify best practices used by other agencies and countries; this panel’s work is expected to be complete by late summer.

The State Department, whatever its faults, is the only organization in the world that operates so many diplomatic missions in so many volatile locations. And, whatever we may think of our budgets, it is vastly better resourced and better staffed than its counterpart organizations in other countries and international agencies. I've served in the U.S. military, worked in the private consulting sector and as a field security adviser for a UN humanitarian agency, and have worked for the Department for so long that I can watch myself age as I flip through my old passport pictures, and I honestly think the Department pretty much defines the best security practices in high-risk / high-threat areas. What's more, since I'm in frequent contact with other U.S. agencies and foreign security establishments, I know that opinion is shared by others.

Of course, I'm always eager to learn from outside independent experts, but who are these wise men? Whatever they're doing has been kept out of the news media, but today I learned the names of two of the panel members. It was a let-down.

One of them I know only by reputation (which is good), but his professional background is only marginally relevant, his career was spent entirely on the domestic side, and he retired from active duty about twenty years ago. The other I know personally, going back to one of his first jobs in the Department. He has a relevant background, and he rose to a high position in another U.S. government agency, but stepped down from that position after a rather large mismanagement fiasco.

Even giving these gentlemen every benefit of the doubt, placing them on this panel gives Congressional critics cause to doubt both its independence and its expertise.

Maybe the rest of the panel will be so super impressive that I'll be amazed and delighted when they complete their work and issue a report. Hey, hope springs eternal.

The other item that I want to quickly comment on is the recommendation to develop minimum security standards for temporary mission facilities. More on that tomorrow.

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